


Boiling a Frog

by Potterology



Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: F/F, Fargo AU, Gen, Halloween, Horror, a bit sexy someplaces, depictions of decapitation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-26
Updated: 2017-10-31
Packaged: 2019-01-23 14:07:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12509160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Potterology/pseuds/Potterology
Summary: "Nicole smells battery acid at the back of her throat, tasting iron and green water as it sticks in the soft tissue of dry muscle, fuzzy teeth, an exhausted jaw from grinding them in the night. The dream had not been about much of anything at all, but the tension wrestles in the pit of her stomach, some fluttery creature battering itself against the bars of a cage. Something feels strange."A car accident takes a darker turn and Nicole struggles not to lose her head.





	1. Two for the Price of One

Nicole smells battery acid at the back of her throat, tasting iron and green water as it sticks in the soft tissue of dry muscle, fuzzy teeth, an exhausted jaw from grinding them in the night. The dream had not been about much of anything at all, but the tension wrestles in the pit of her stomach, some fluttery creature battering itself against the bars of a cage. Something feels strange. Off in a way she cannot quite set a finger on; beside her Waverly stirs and Nicole cracks an eye. The phone is on silent but the soft flash of light illuminates the room, the caller ID painting every wall a delicate blue and green. _Nedley_ flashes and Nicole flops a hand over. 

“Hello?” she answers, throat cracked and groggy, trying to keep quiet. It doesn’t appear to do much as a hand creeps over her waist and Waverly sighs a tired grumble into her back. It’s a sweet gesture. 

_“Haught. Need you North on 40, heading to the campgrounds. We got reports of a car accident up there. Something about a tree?”_

Nicole fights a groan and forces herself into the most professional tone one can manage at two in the morning. “Roger that. I’ll be there in twenty.” Over the phone, she can practically hear the Sheriff frown. Waverly is softly snoring again beside her and drooling into the borrowed Dallas Police Academy shirt she pilfered out of Nicole’s closet.

“ _Make it fifteen_ ,” he says shortly. Then, with a little more meaning, “ _The paramedics aren’t in a rush_.”

Time comes and goes – a careful extradition from the tangle of limbs resembling her girlfriend, followed by a hasty but successful dressing attempt – Nicole slipping out of the apartment as on time as she can manage. The Campground is close, falling just inside the Purgatory Sheriff’s district, the luck of sparse department postings and a National Park security limitation, but it sits so neatly at the centre of the Ghost River Triangle, a part of Nicole wonders if perhaps a well-timed call to Wynonna would not go overly amiss. _A car accident, something about a tree_. Last time anybody checked, Revenants were hardly kicking their heels up in a rain dance and there had been minimal chatter about witches lately, as far as she knew; let a few strays find themselves in a ditch, it’s the expected thing with the weather like it is.

Blowing for the nines, anyways.

She sets the wipers on full-blast and they beat out a frantic rhythm, a constant squeak and smack as they rise and bounce against the storm. Nicole keeps the radio on low and her red and blues flashing all down the highway. Sirens are unnecessary this time of night. Not a damn soul for miles. She passes South Ghost and Lost Knife Trail, wondering _who the fuck named these places_? If Purgatory was a strange thing to call a town, it just got worse the more Nicole discovered. 

Lights breach the horizon as the cruiser crests around a bend, and Nicole slows to a stop at the police tape already set up; stationary, the rain only seems to be coming down harder. “Shit,” she hisses, climbing out. Dons gloves and boots and the Stetson, which seemed as useful as a chocolate fireguard in this weather, and makes her way over to where Lonnie stands, shivering, just off the main road markings near the banking. He flags her down with a wave.

“The body snatchers are on their way, paramedics already called it A.D.S.T.W,” he shouts, overly loud even with the howling wind. Nicole makes a face. Arrived Dead, Stayed That Way. It’s a grim term and one she dislikes intensely.

“Where’s the car? And who called it in?”

Lonnie shrugs. “Didn’t leave a name and nobody was here when I arrived, but, _ah_ – I can’t say I blame ‘em.” He does something then Nicole has never seen him do: makes the sign of the cross and points down into the tree line.

The banking is steep – making a go at descending in this weather is tempting a mudslide -  but even at the road with limited lighting from the car headlights and lamps, it’s easy to see: a royal blue Honda Civic at a clean forty-five-degree angle, the front end crumpled like a Coke can underfoot, every door smashed and every window blown out. Two cream headrests protrude by a good foot and a half out the back, truck popped open with the force of impact, the inside light flickering on and off as the tyres slowly deflate under the pressure. Smoke or steam billows out the engine and gearbox, innards clearly on display. Nicole winces.

 _A.D.S.T.W_.

“How many in the car?” she asks, holding her breath and steeling herself for the worse. _Please, no kids._

“Just the driver. Male. Calgary plates, so maybe somebody from out of town on their way to the campgrounds. There was luggage in the trunk.” He clicks on his flashlight and points it a few feet from the car. Sure enough, a shiny silver travel case reflects back at them from the underbrush. Nicole shivers and frowns at the look on the other Deputy’s face.

Water is creeping under her collar, soaking through the fabric of her shirt and down, into the thick strap of her bra and the small of her back. It’s getting in the gap between her gloves and the cuffs of her coat. The Stetson is sagging already as the material, not meant to withstand this kind of immersion, gives way. She wants to rip it off her head and do away with the pretence. The taste from earlier is back in the air again: bitter and sharp and gnawing as it curls around her, the rust and salt smell of lithium and iodide, an unnatural and man-made combination. It brings the same tension. The same rattled bars feeling from her dream. She thinks of Waverly in the moonlight. How warm the bed had been and how very much she wanted to be there now, blissfully unconscious, curled around a citrus smelling Waverly. 

“What aren’t you telling me?”

Lonnie flinches and moves his torch to an approximate of where the driver would sit. “The driver, he’s – I mean…” She watches him swallow thickly, like a twenty-year old college girl on a big night out, forcing back the desire to vomit so she can squeeze in one last shot. “—he hasn’t got a head.”

 

 

*

 

 

The dream always starts quiet. A darkened station corridor, double doors blown wide open, and Nicole is so cold it aches; it’s like a fucking Bonnie Tyler video. At some point, there is a shout and she runs towards it, down the hall and through the doors, heart beating in her chest, sweating as if she’s running a mile at breakneck speed and maybe she is but her legs are heavy and _she’s so tired_ –

“ ** _Haught!_** ”

Nicole jerks awake to Nedley rapping gloved knuckles on the window, frowning and unimpressed with his sleeping deputy. The clock on the dash blinks 06:57. Lethargic and sweating, she climbs out of the cruiser and forgoes the soaked, melted Stetson in the passenger seat, writing it off as a lost cause around the three-hours-in-the-rain mark. A long night turning into a long day ahead, no doubt, and even from here she can spot Lonnie flat out in his backseat.

“Sorry, Sheriff, must’ve drifted off for a minute there,” she mumbles in apology. He shrugs it off.

“Cavalry arrive yet?” he asks. One look tells him everything and nothing comes back pleasing. There are techies dotting the place, police tape sectioning everything off, and they’re lucky the day travellers haven’t started to come through yet; if this was summer, traffic would be backed up for miles both ways into the campgrounds. 

“Medical examiner picked up the body around four, forensics arrived a little after. No immediate sign of suspicious activity. City plates, but I’m still waiting for the check to come through.” Nicole shifts and sniffs against the chill biting at her face, uncomfortable. The same strange feeling from the morning is back, raising the hairs at the back of her neck, an unwelcome twist in her gut suddenly tying it. As if someone has their finger right in front of her nose and she can tell it’s there only by sense. “Lonnie and I walked a hundred yards, three-sixty around the car and we can’t find his head – techs can’t find it either. They’ve been in the woods for hours looking.”

As ever, Nicole can’t quite tell his reaction. The old man is so damned good at keeping it all under the surface, his rage and surprise, a constant even keel which frustrates her to no end. Waverly was always expressive, easy to read almost. Wynonna is a perpetual April. Dolls… Not that she would ever admit it out loud to either man, but yeah, Nedley and Dolls were pretty damned similar in this respect.

“We’ll find it. Can’t have gone too far.” He nods once as if he’s decided something important and finally looks at her. “What d’you think? Black Badge would have something to say about this, I’m sure.”

Nicole considers it. Let’s the idea float over her tongue and finds it sour. “There’s no blood in the car,” she begins slowly, already knowing the answer he wants her to give. She shrugs and her mouth twitches. “Not a drop. But as of right now it’s _just_ a bad car accident – no need to bother good, busy folks with something we can handle.”

Besides, Nicole thinks, nobody is ready to get back in the saddle. Wynonna hasn’t left the Homestead in weeks, begging to just be left _the damn hell_ alone, carrying the quiet air of desperation and heavy boozing; Doc spends too much of his time walking the town border; Dolls acts as though he’s in a bid to antagonize every demonic and hell-bound creature in the Ghost River Triangle; and Waverly… stays away. Practically lives in Nicole’s apartment, taking up a shift or two a week in Shorty’s to help out Doc, filling the glaring absence Rosita has left, and looks at grad schools nearby who offer so many different language courses, Nicole gets dizzy while she’s listing them all. It feels remarkably as though they all took a giant breath in and even though they all know something bigger and badder is on the loose, no one can quite manage to muster up the energy to start a fight. Or finish it.

Which is saying something.

Nedley huffs and nods, satisfied, thumbs in belt. “Alright, then. Tell Lonnie the two of you are to go home, get some food and a shower and maybe forty winks, and come back this afternoon. No good having you in if you can’t stand straight.”

Nicole does force herself up tall, full height slightly hilarious next to the shorter Sheriff. “Yes, sir.” She doesn’t have the willpower to argue. Thinks about the sandwich in her fridge and beautiful woman likely still fast asleep in her bed and a wash of relief engulfs the exhausted muscles of her back. “I’ll let him know.” Nedley claps her shoulder and fits his hat, making his way over to the head tech taking inventory of the car, and it’s a short conversation with her opposite number.

 _God bless the blues, honestly_. The sirens go on as she makes her way back through town and it’s so, so worth it knowing she has a hot shower and eight hours of uninterrupted sleep ahead. Thinks about coffee and Waverly and the massive volume of leftovers from Thanksgiving still in her fridge. (Wynonna had opted out, but the rest of the gang had gone to Shorty’s and it had been nice, relaxing when so very few days in this town are not.) Nicole thinks about whether or not to eat first or sleep first, thinking so hard in fact she almost completely misses it.

Because there, in the middle of the road, on the main drag of Purgatory, is a single, bloodied severed head. With a Post-It attached to its head. “What the --” Nicole slows down and it isn’t until she pulls past it and steps out that she really gets a decent look.

It was, one hundred percent, most definitely a woman’s head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I realised I forgot to specify a little: This isn't going to talk about Revenants or focus on Bulshar. This is sort of based around Fargo the TV series/movie. Nicole is a lone wolf on this!


	2. Partly Known and Partly Knower

Finding a head on the main drag changes her day; ‘taking a break’ takes a backseat and when the coroner finally shows up, she looks about as exhausted as Nicole feels. “Hanging in there, Sally?” she asks, leaning heavily against the cruiser with the last dregs of her coffee swallowed down as if it’s the elixir of life. Nicole thinks about turning back to the station and calling Lonnie and spending the next eight hours taking stock of evidence. It’s not a pretty picture, certainly not one she particularly relishes, but it’s coming up for ten now and staring down the barrel of noon is hardly the most ideal time to cram REM sleep.

So, she gratefully accepts the cappuccino Sally’s assistant offers and waves her hand in the general direction of the station. 

“Just driving along and found it here. The note says ‘for the attention of the Sheriff’s department’.”  Two forensics lackeys set up a crude perimeter and start photographing everything they can. It’s a small scene. No mess and nothing out of the ordinary, at least not from what Nicole can tell from her walk around. “Someone clearly didn’t want us to miss it. You think mailing it to the office might have been a little easier?”

“Well, sure, but then you’ve got to pay for postage.” Sally grins and snaps on a pair of blue latex gloves. “Clean cut like our John Doe - I barely got him horizontal when you called.”

Sally had been one of the first people she met on the job after relocating from Texas to Calgary. In her thirties and in the middle of a lengthy divorce, in the few weeks they knew each other, she had been easy to talk to and a welcoming presence in a city Nicole felt wildly unfamiliar with; the cold, the people, the way the city moved. Mesquite was hardly a bustling centre of commerce. With the drama of their last medical examiner – murderous, kidnapping ball-sack that he was – it had been difficult securing a permanent replacement to step into the role, leaving Sally as the busiest bodysnatcher in Calgary; occasionally a burly man in his fifties from Edmonton would make the drive down, but it was rare and kind of an ache for everybody involved.

“Sorry to interrupt your date,” Nicole manages to banter back, but it’s half-hearted and Sally just rolls her eyes.

It’s a long process – longer than either woman cares for – but around two hours later, the assistant has the head in an organ transport box labelled hazardous, the forensics guys are wrapping up their part, and Nicole has to fight the monstrous yawn building in her chest, damn near falling asleep standing up. Police work is arduous in a small town and the excitement of breaking the monotonous wore off around four this morning. She runs her hand through her hair and pushes off, nodding at the techies packing up as Sally pulls off the gloves and sets aside her equipment to step closer. They both have their arms crossed and Nicole is too tired to do more than listen as Sally talks.

“I’ll call you after the autopsy on John and let you know if I find many similarities with Jane. I expect I will, but without both heads and both bodies, it’s gonna be circumstantial,” she says, professional before petering out into something more concerned. “Y’know, I heard you were in the hospital.”

Nicole hides her flinch as best as she can.

“Bad encounter with a perp. Nothing to worry about.” She picks lint off her cuff, pictures the white raised creepy scar bite underneath it and looks away to the yellow tape, to the yogurt shop across the street, to the bright blink of the sun behind winter clouds.

“Try practicing that in the mirror a few times. Might look a little more believable,” Sally says, smirking. She rounds Nicole and jerks her head at her assistant, the kid scurrying around the back of the truck still wearing his gloves and headgear. The older woman hangs out the driver’s window as she waits for him to get situated. “Hitting the hay?”

 _What a blessing it would be_ , Nicole thinks. “Are you kidding? I’ve got a head to catalogue and a finder’s report to write.”

Sally grins and nods, a two finger salute as she starts the engine. “See you back at the shop, Haught.”

 

*

 

Shorty’s is packed. More than the usual, at least, and Nicole doesn’t find the crack of pool balls and the hustle of drunk shouting as easy to slip into this evening as it usually is; she’s sluggish, a sponge in molasses. Body stiff with a paperwork hunch. Three hours spent creating an intricate documented report on how she came across a severed head, followed by her initial investigative findings on the John Doe crash victim, which was really nothing more than ‘it looked suspicious’, and how the two felt related. There was still the travel case to go through yet, each item meticulously labelled and catalogued by the borrowed forensics team in the basement; typically, it would have been her or Lonnie, but an out of town coroner meant out of town backup dancers. Not that Nicole was complaining.

 The car is still being broken down as she slides into a booth opposite the bar, watch ticking 18:03. According to the preliminary report, not only is there no head in the car, there isn’t even  _blood_.  

The driver’s neck was cauterised around the decaying edges, so Sally says, and it brings to mind Jack of Knives too quickly for Nicole to totally banish the thought of calling in Wynonna. Of mentioning it all to Dolls. How does one casually drop a severed head and a headless corpse into conversation?

“Don’t make it too complicated,” Nedley says to her, snapping her back to reality.

His beer is flat, a fingertip dragging down the side of the glass chasing a bead of condensation. It’s a strange thing to see him doing; the Sheriff isn’t a man she pegs as a person who fidgets.

“It’s already complicated,” she counters and finds herself picking at the label of her own bottle; behind the bar, Nicole sees Waverly laugh at something Doc says. Nedley huffs. It’s easy to know who he looks at even without watching him do it, a sly glance at the younger Earp, at the boys.  _There goes mentioning it to anyone_.

“I mean don’t make it  _worse_.”

Nedley is a good Sheriff, a better man than Nicole thinks most people – Wynonna, especially – give him credit for, at least not until lately; he is not the easiest to work for sometimes and certainly not the sort of man she ever pictured herself side by side with, but the camaraderie cultivated between them is real. It is honest.  Forged in the fire of creepy spoilt douchebags and the supernatural void which seemed to swirl around the two oddest women they’ve ever met: just two ordinary people assailed with the extremely unordinary. He told her once it was called playing the long game. Nicole isn’t so sure either one of them is playing so much as just trying to survive it.

Nedley swallows the last of his beer and throws a ten on the table, shrugging on his coat. “Waverly has barely stepped foot in the office, Wynonna even less. Now, you could take this to Dolls or Holliday, or, heck, even the scrawny lab geek, but you take this to one of ‘em, and you take it to all of ‘em.” He softens, just a bit. “Wynonna lost her daughter, Haught, and I know you know how hard that’s been on her. She needs time away from all the madness. I’m not telling you to shelve it, just… Keep it in house until we can’t anymore.”

They lock eyes and a beat passes between them. Understanding. Something like it. But, before he’s out of earshot, she leans half out the booth and asks, “Doesn’t it feel a little like shutting the barn door after the horse has bolted?”

 

*

 

The station is abandoned, just like always. Same long walk in the dark. Same freeze in her bones, right through the skin, right in the veins as if she could crack open an arm and see nothing but crystal inside. One of those novelty rocks you buy at Seaworld: stone on the outside and precious at the centre. The double doors are open. Sweat sticks and matts hair to the nape of her neck; idly, she realises her hair is longer and back in a braid.

 _Help!_  comes the shout, right on time, and just as she always does, Nicole runs towards it. I’m a cop, she thinks, go where the danger is no matter what; protect and serve and protect and serve and protect and serve. Everything seems to happen as it should. The shout and the movement, the doors, and the wind blowing through, the whispers. Wait.  _Whispers?_ Her limbs get heavier with every step forward – except she isn’t going forward. No, her feet move but she might as well be going up the wrong escalator. Another shout, louder this time. More desperate. Begging. And the whispers, fuck, they’re begging too.  _What do you want?_  she hears herself ask, but there is no concrete reply, nothing but an ache starting in her leg, making it harder to move and God, she could just give up. Here and now.

 _What do you want?_  Again and louder, shouting into the deep void ahead and everything is getting darker, almost pitch dark, and fucking Jesus, the ache is a full pain now, a deep stabbing, angry pain travelling right to the bone, from foot to calf to thigh and fucking Christ, she’s burning, it’s burning from the ground up and hellfire –

It’s a cramp.

And she is lying on the floor.

Nicole blinks.

The fog of the nightmare lifts and she brings her knee to her chest, pulling her toes towards her; the cramp fades slowly. The bedroom is body-warm, a sharp contrast to the harsh chill of her dream, and the dark is soothing rather than sinister.

“Y’okay?” a head pops out over the side, bleary eyed but concerned. Nicole nods and stretches out her leg.

“I’m fine,” she says, standing carefully to stretch out her leg, voice quiet. “It was just a cramp. Go back to sleep.”

A mumbled agreement is lost to the haze of sleep again and for the second night on the bounce, Nicole slips out of her bedroom with a regretful, exhausted look at the woman left alone in her bed; blood returns to her fingertips the more she moves, the bone-aching cold of the dream shaking its way out of her with every step. It’s a pleasant feeling. Like returning to life after a stint underground. It even manages to push out some of the fatigue still weighing her down and once the dream fades into her memory, a cold glass of water downed out of habit, she feels almost human again.

 _What does it mean?_  Nicole had never relied on the hokum of dream-telling, the ridiculous notion that someone could divine life secrets out of an unconscious neuron synapse misfire; teeth falling out means one thing, your hair falling out means another; dreams about being at school in your underwear, about your co-workers, sex or death or acts of grandeur. Revenge fantasies played out in your mindseye – all supposed to mean something. And while she always thought it was bullshit, there’s a part of her now wondering if maybe she shouldn’t be paying more attention to these kind of things. Especially in the brave new world of Revenants, demons and murderous spider skanks.

“Come back to bed.” A yawn startles her, two arms winding around her waist, and Waverly’s tired voice chases the last vestige of the nightmare out of her mind. Nicole smiles. “I’m cold without my bonus blanket.”

“There’s more in the closet, I can --” she starts to move towards the linen cupboard but it proves somewhat more of a challenge when her tiny, weirdly strong girlfriend stops her with a tighter hug. 

“No,  _you’re_  my bonus blanket,” she says into Nicole’s shoulder.  _Well, that’s the cutest fucking thing I’ve ever heard_. She stifles a snort and extricates herself slowly, kissing the top of Waverly’s head. ( _For the attention of: The Sheriff’s Department_  in messy script, dashed on a blue Post-It cracks through her vision like a flash of lightning and Nicole struggles not to feel shaken right to the core.) Doesn’t manage to catch the strangled, sharp intake though and Waverly frowns, looking up at her curiously. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

Nicole nods. Swallows.  _You mention it to one of ‘em, you mention it to all of ‘em_. “Yeah. I think that cramp hurt more than I realised.”

It’s weak at best but in the quiet darkness of the kitchen, it seems to be enough for now; Waverly sighs and tilts on her tiptoes to kiss her, sitting somewhere on the border of chaste, and Nicole leans into it. Happy to be distracted, at least for a moment or two.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all your feedback and comments! It's always appreciated and it feeds my ego!


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